S.E.O., the new yellow journalism

Claire Miller wrote in The New York Times Tech Blog that tactics used by The Huffington Post to increase page hits could soon be adopted across the web.
Using search engine optimization or S.E.O. The Huffington Post manufactures headlines that match the current top searches of the day. As the article points out, sometimes they manufacture a news article to go along with it too. Using these methods, their website appears at the top of most Google searches and subsequently has a robust amount of page hits as a result.

Sure, Google’s results page is relevant to your advertiser’s opinion of
your site, and therefore your bottom line, but The Huffington Post seems to take this practice to a point where some may question their integrity. What if more established news sites to begin using these practices, if they haven’t already, what would we think of that?
Not long ago, The New York Times Magazine published an article on a designer eye glasses merchant that found his horrendous customer service and bullying behavior actually increased his websites spot on Google searches. Despite criminal harassment of his customers he found that his site would actually come up higher on the results page than the actual manufacturer of the eyewear. Needless to say, he learned his lesson.
The lesson seems to be any behavior, whether petty, rotten or immoral, that appears to increase one’s online exposure is justifiable. So, while some honorable news sites may abhor this behavior the less moralistic among them will be busy undercutting them, as there’s not much loyalty when it comes to online advertisers.
Now it would appear that the news world will have soon turned full circle and settled down close to its yellow journalism roots. It’s a dire prediction, but I’m sure Hearst would’ve eaten his heart out.